Category: Design Thinking

New Age Product Development to Reduce Supply Chain Costs

2/26/2021

In this blogpost I shall touch upon R&D process improvement in order to reduce procurement, supply chain logistics cost. If this intrigues you, read on …

Reducing procurement, supply chain logistics is an omnipresent to-do issue for business leaders, pandemic or otherwise, but more so in today’s times because of transport disruptions due to the pandemic.

I would say there are broadly two ways to handle any issue- proactive and reactive. Improving R&D processes via Design Thinking & Kaizen is a proven proactive way of making sure that external environment will have minimal to negligible effect on your supply chain function. Further, this is true for all companies in the manufacturing as well as the service sectors.

So, I come to my favorite questions-

Did you know that improving your R&D business processes can have immediate direct savings of 35 to 40% of your sourcing and supply chain costs?
Did you know that R&D process improvement can ensure that your supply chain is productive and functions at an all -time-good level regardless of disturbances in the external environment?

Want to know more? Check out the video below-

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Launching and growing a start-up R&D unit- A case study

11/1/2019

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Launching and growing a start_up Research and Development unit_ a case study

Launching and growing a Startup R&D unit Case Study

Problem: A SE Asian bio-pharma company that sold white labeled products wanted to start indigenous research facility. They also wanted to improve product quality and logistics as most of their products had customer complaints.

Due Diligence: Due diligence of their product mix, complaints, new product portfolio was done. Value stream maps for all existing products were set up. A site for the start-up R&D was identified.

Solution: Design Thinking and Hoshin were installed to create R&D infrastructure and build capabilities to meet company’s goals.

Business processes dealing with recruitment, employee engagement, material/ machine procurement, compliance and general QMS, IPM, regulatory, product development, distribution and logistics were re-engineered. Kaizen was installed across the organization to maintain culture of quality and continuous improvement.

International marketing business processes were also set up enroute as the company added ‘exports to Netherlands, CIS, GCC and ASEAN countries’ to its corporate goals. Hence, course-correction was done appropriately, successfully.

Results Dashboard:

The organization succeeded in internalizing R&D to the tune of 95 % in the very first year.
All product quality complaints were addressed and successfully closed.
Profits grew exponentially. The company which was at 68th rank on National ORG list got on to 28th position in just 3 years !

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Keywords and Tags:
#ContinuousImprovement #Startup #continuousimprovementinstartup #ResearchAndDevelopment

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8 Steps to Becoming a Customer- Centric Organization.

7/5/2017

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Customer-centric approach comprises of sequential and collaborative efforts at understanding the voice of the customer (VoC).

8 steps to becoming a customer_centric organization

www.Innoworks.ca

There is only one valid definition of a business purpose: to create a customer
- Peter Drucker

Customer-centric approach comprises of:

Customer insights.
Customer focus.
Customer solutions.
Customer management.
Customer process.
Customer contact.
Customer loyalty.

In order to understand the customer, the surest and most efficient approach is to take the basic concept of business process mapping and re-modelling it in a certain way that provides a dedicated focus on the customer. This process is defined as “Customer mapping”.

The information arising out of customer mapping helps the company to improve or redesign its internal business processes that lead to the making of its product (or services).

Customer mapping allows a company to focus on the actions a customer must take in order to purchase its product (or services). That is, customer mapping provides the company with a complete overview of its customer’s journey. The company can then evaluate and devise ways to determine what it can do to enhance the perceived value of its goods (i.e. product or services).

The customer map also helps identify unnecessary actions a customer must take to buy its product, as well as redundancies, wasted time and rework that diversely affect the customer’s buying behavior.

Following 8 steps facilitate to become a Customer- Centric organization-

Define your target customers.
Learn how customers feel and perceive your company.
Align technology, process, products and services to customer needs.
Map and improve customer journey.
Engage leadership and staff in the customer mapping activity.
Transform your organizational culture and reward systems.
Measure your performance using customer centric KPIs.
Incorporate customer feedback into process and product (or services) innovation and design.

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Dos and Don’ts Of Rapid Innovation

2/15/2017

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When I talk with the business leaders and heads of strategy across organizations, the common challenge that they seem to face is to translate ideas into business profits. This very dilemma led me to delve deep on this topic. And, I noticed that there exists a ‘generic’ outlook regarding innovation, which is- Innovation is everybody’s business.

My point of view is – Yes ONLY for those doing incremental innovations such as cost-effective production, cheaper logistics, continuous improvement etc. While, ‘Break-through innovations’ CAN’T be everyone’s business.

Organizations, right at the outset, need to have complete clarity about the path they wish to take regarding innovation.

Remember “Innovation is a full-time job”. It simply can’t be done on a part-time basis. Also, skills needed for ‘Innovation’ are different from those required to run a core business or even for that matter a company’s existing product development department. Hence, if your manager has dual responsibilities of running your development lab and building innovation, means this is a sure sign of a failure! For path- breaking innovations to be a reality, you need to have an ‘Innovation’ leader with a dedicated taskforce and allotted finances.

Another significant element of succeeding with Innovation is effective handling of “Innovation killers”.

Now, what do I mean by Innovation killers? “This will never work! “Or “What is the NPV?” - Do you hear such or similar statements the moment a new idea is mentioned? If YES, then there are innovation killers in your organization.

Here are some of the ‘innovation killers’ I've observed, that dramatically reduce return on investment (ROI) on innovation. Read on and checkout if your organization hosts any of them-

'We welcome all new ideas' - This is one of the suicidal innovation approaches. Leadership should clearly inform ‘what not to do’ as once constraints or boundaries are placed, the team knows what innovations to focus on i.e. innovations are more strategic and happen not ‘by chance’.

"What is the NPV?" - Asking for a NPV information or for that matter any financial metric at the time of onset of the innovation project is again self-immolation. Instead the acceptance could be based on customer needs, trends etc.

"We are confident since we have lot of quantifiable industry data" - Industry reports are great to understand market landscape but customer needs have to be understood and documented only after spending quality time in the market to conduct the market research that helps to identify the unmet customer needs and key business model levers.

"Our brand and technology are better'- Instead ask ‘What is the unmet customer problem?” Secondly, do your brand and technology allow you to satisfy your customer’s problem better? If the answer is not an unequivocal yes, then go back to the drawing board.

"This will never work" - Typically teams in most organizations teams can be split into four main categories:

Innovation enthusiast: these are people who dislike maintaining status quo. They always like to take risks and seek new heights.
2C Profile-ist: This comprises majority people who are comfortable with status quo. However, with coaching and convincing (2C) will tend to be supportive and accept moderate changes.
Followers: This group doesn’t have any specific opinion. They simply tend to follow the majority route per se.
Nay sayers: These people constantly pose discouraging comments and excuses at every instant a new idea is presented. In an economic era where continuous improvement and innovation are lifeline for businesses, such ‘Nay sayers’ might turn out to be more dreadful than an under-performer.

Below are some methods I've successfully employed to effectively handle Innovation killers–

Demonstrate the damage they cause.
Stop excuses and limit destructive criticism.
Work hard to build an organizational culture that supports innovation.
Get buy-in and ownership from business unit managers.
Always have a widely understood systems-wide business process.
Tie ‘Innovation’ to ‘Company strategy’.
Spend enough resources on training and coaching Innovation teams.
Create an ‘Idea management system’: if necessary, use external experts to evaluate ‘Innovative concepts’ before allotting dollars. Set effective idea acceptance criteria and metrics in advance.

You can no longer expect to lead the pack in your industry simply with incremental continuous improvement efforts. Instead, you need to raise the bar and develop a business process that draws’ Continuous rapid innovation’.

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Innovation is not an initiative. It’s a business process !

2/2/2017

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Innovation has been the buzz word for the entire past decade and shall continue to be. However, what does innovation mean to 21st Century businesses? Innovation equals profits.

innovation is not an initiative, innovation is a business process

Primarily innovation and comprises of-

Process innovation.
Product innovation.

Process innovation deals with internal operations such as- efficiency improvement, productivity increase, data management etc.

Product (or services) innovation deals with creating new products or services, to bring- in new revenue streams, develop products (or services) that add value to current initiatives, make customer experience more satisfying etc.

It has been found that typically 75% of industry based innovations belong to process innovation, while only 25% share is attributed to product innovation.

However, ‘Innovation’ is not an initiative. It’s a business process. The ‘Innovation’ process begins with market selection. It includes customer mapping, steps to uncover customer needs, analyze unmet needs, design or select a growth strategy and generate product (or service) concepts. Approved concepts then enter the 'Development' phase- a separate process.

If the ‘Innovation’ process were executed effectively, only winning products would enter the ‘Development’ process consequently, innovation success rates would rise substantially. This is especially because when ideas are generated around specific unmet customer needs, the chances of devising a solution of great customer value increases dramatically.

More so, knowing where to focus creatively changes the dynamics of idea generation. If you’re an organization that doesn’t wish to thrive on chaos, rather grow strategically, then Continuous Innovation is the way to go !

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Design Thinking for Service Industries

6/3/2016

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Design Thinking and rapid prototyping is not just for the Manufacturing industries … Service industries also stand to benefit from it. Here’s how : Harvard Business Review Case Study- What Design Thinking Is Doing for the San Francisco Opera.

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5 Attributes for Customer-Centric Innovation.

6/3/2016

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Customer-centric innovation as a concept isn't new to us. It has been in our business lives all along. As a customer we always feel special when the shopkeeper customizes our order. And we always visit that store just to check what's happening out there i.e. even when we don't step out to shop with an agenda. The bottom-line: Customer-centric approach breeds customer loyalty, increases market share and profit.

5 attributes of customer_centric innovation

Customer-centric approach previously was limited to shopfront. Customer-centric approach is now backward integrated into innovation and product development phase- termed as customer-centric innovation. The aim being- delight customers with products customized to their needs. The old adage- Goods custom-made are half sold, is so true. Today, customer-centric innovation is practised in manufacturing and service organizations.

Customer- centric innovation begins with a customer- centric approach and includes-

Customer insight.
Customer focus.
Customer solutions.
Customer management.
Customer process.
Customer contact.
Customer loyalty.

The key here is that- companies must identify the first task a customer must do to initiate purchase of its product and effectively map the entire process of the customer’s journey to its product (or services).

Next in sequence is to focus on various customer touch points such as- offices, stores, billing or invoicing, phone, emails, media, marketing, events, internet, social media sites, sales staff interactions, social groups, word of mouth etc.

A customer may state in general terms- better, quicker, dependable. Customer-centric innovation calls for deeper understanding of the customer’s needs, to delve into a wider scope of that need, evaluate the unmet need and design your product (or services) accordingly.

For example, a customer states- 'he wants to buy insurance'. For a customer-centric innovator company, this statement means- the customer is actually not “buying insurance” rather “obtaining protection”. The wider scope of “obtaining protection” ignites more ideas for the insurance company to build more service solutions and features into their products, than “buying insurance” might have brought to light, see what I mean?

Here are 5 attributes to successfully attain customer-centric innovation:

Customer delight: Engage with customer from Get Go.
Listen to the customer: Bring forth customer commitment top down. Inculcate and nurture customer centric workplace culture. Recognize the customer across all levels of the business.
Find unmet customer need: Design policies and business processes from customer’s point of view. Measure what matters to customers.
Think inside the box: Scattered brainstorming doesn’t work. Both Research as well as Development has to be strategic.
Create products and services as per customer demands. i.e. Design and Develop products based on the unmet customer need.

Lastly but not the least, encourage customer feedback. Change customer satisfaction to a state of customer delight. This alone shall differentiate your product (or service) from being "one among many" to your customer’s "preferred choice"